SHOP WINDOW AT DIEPPE
WATER-COLOUR
During the winter Whistler met Sir Seymour Haden for the last time at a dinner given by the Society of Illustrators (of which both were Vice-Presidents) to Mr. Alfred Parsons, on his election to the Royal Academy. It was Whistler's first appearance in public since his wife's death, and as we had persuaded him to go, never anticipating any such meeting, we were annoyed to think that we had exposed him to the unpleasantness of it, or Haden either, for we had had no part in their quarrels. However, as soon as Whistler saw Haden he woke up and began to enjoy himself. His laugh carried far. Haden heard it, and may have seen the three monocles on the dinner-table. He looked toward the laugh, dropped his spoon in his soup-plate, and left. Later Whistler was called upon to make a speech and could not get out of it. But it was an anti-climax. The event of the dinner was over.
At Christmas he went with Mr. and Mrs. T. Fisher Unwin and ourselves to Bournemouth, where our hotel was an old-fashioned inn, selected from the guide-book because it was the nearest to the sea. We breakfasted in our rooms, we met at lunch to order dinner, and the rest of the day Whistler insisted must be spent getting an appetite for it—wandering on the cliffs, he with his little paint-box. But the sea was on the wrong side, the wind blew the wrong way, he could do nothing. Some days we took long drives. One damp, cold, cheerless afternoon we stopped at a small inn in Poole. The landlady, watching Whistler sip his hot whisky and water, was convinced he was somebody, but was unable to place him. "And who do you suppose I am?" Whistler asked at last. "I can't exactly say, sir, but I should fancy you was from the 'Alls!" Aubrey Beardsley was then at Boscombe, a further stage in his brave fight with death, and we went to see him. But the sight of the suffering of others was too cruel a reminder to Whistler, and he shrank from going to Beardsley.
Dinner was the event of the day, and it would have proved a disaster had Whistler not seen humour in being expected to eat it, so little was it what he thought a dinner should be. On Christmas Day he was melancholy and stared at the turkey and bread sauce, the sodden potatoes and soaked greens: "To think of my beautiful room in the Rue du Bac, and the rest of them there, eating their Christmas dinner, having up my wonderful old Pouilly from my cellar."
But we had something else to talk about. In the Saturday Review of that week, December 26, there was an article, signed Walter Sickert, that was of interest to us all.
Footnotes
[ [11]Whistler never lost his fancy for inventing names for his friends, and O'K. was the one he found for Mr. Kennedy, rarely calling him by any other either in conversation or correspondence
CHAPTER XL: THE LITHOGRAPH CASE.
THE YEARS EIGHTEEN NINETY-SIX AND EIGHTEEN NINETY-SEVEN.
Mr. Sickert's article was ostensibly inspired by the show of J.'s lithographs of Granada at the Fine Art Society's, which Whistler had introduced. Whistler understood it to be an attack upon himself, as well as upon J., whose lithographs alone it pretended to deal with. As a rule, Whistler's lithographs were made on lithographic paper and transferred to the stone. The article argued that to pass off drawings made on paper as lithographs was as misleading to "the purchaser on the vital point of commercial value" as to sell photogravures for etchings, which, when Sir Hubert Herkomer had done so, led to a protest from J. and Whistler, and also from Mr. Sickert, whose condemnation had been strong. The article, therefore, was written either ignorantly or maliciously, for no such distinction in lithography has ever been made. Transfer-paper is as old as Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, who looked upon it as the most important part of his invention. The comment amounted to a charge of dishonesty, and an apology was demanded by J. The apology was refused by Mr. Frank Harris, editor of the Saturday Review, and consequently Messrs. Lewis and Lewis brought an action for libel against writer and editor.
The action stood in J.'s name, and Whistler was the principal witness. In the hope that the matter might be settled by an apology and without appeal to the law, Mr. Heinemann arranged a meeting between the editor of the Saturday Review and Whistler, but nothing came of it. People who knew nothing of lithography got involved in the case, and our friend Harold Frederic, for one, entangled himself with the enemy. Others were found to know a great deal whom we never suspected of knowing anything, and through Whistler we discovered that Mr. Alfred Gilbert started life as a lithographer, was indignant with the Saturday Review, and only too willing to offer his help to us. Meetings followed on Sunday evenings in the huge Maida Vale house where Mr. Gilbert was trying to revive mediæval relations between master and workman and live the life of a craftsman with pupils and assistants, a brave experiment which ended in failure.
The case was fixed for April 1897, the most inconvenient time of the year for the artist who exhibits. Whistler was working on the portrait of Miss Kinsella, and he had promised three pictures to the Salon: Green and Violet, Rose and Gold, and a Nocturne. M. Helleu, who was in London, catalogued and measured them, reserving space on the wall. Only a few days were left before sending in and the work would never be done in time. Whistler was in despair. It was then, too, he learned that C. E. Holloway, a distinguished artist whom the world never knew, was ill in his studio near by. Holloway was anything but a successful man, and Whistler was shocked to find him in bed, lacking every comfort. He provided doctors, nurses, medicine, and food, and looked after the dying man's family. He spent afternoons in Holloway's tiny bedroom. All this took up time and made it difficult to get his pictures ready for the Salon.
He called one morning on his way to the studio to tell us of the death of Holloway. He was going to the funeral, and suggested a fund to purchase some of the pictures and give the proceeds to the family. He was nervous and worried, the Salon clamouring for his work on the one hand, the trial claiming him on the other. People, he complained, did not seem to understand the importance of his time. Things were amazing in the studio, and he was expected to leave them just to go into court. No, he wouldn't, that was the end of it. The pictures must be finished. J. said to him: "The case is as much yours as mine, and you must come. Your reputation is involved. There will be an end to your lithography if we lose. You must fight."
Whistler liked one the better for the contradiction he was supposed unable to bear, and he answered: "Well, you know, but really—why, of course, Joseph, it's all right. I'm coming; of course, we'll fight it through together. I never meant not to. That's all right."
And to E., who went with him to the "Temple of Pomona" in the Strand, to order flowers for Holloway, he kept saying: "You know, really, Joseph mustn't talk like that! Of course, it's all right. Of course, I never meant not to come. You must tell him it's all right. I never back out!"
His work stopped. His pictures did not go to Paris. He stood by us.
The case was tried in the King's Bench Division on April 5, before Mr. Justice Mathew. We were represented by Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., and Mr. Eldon Bankes. Whistler arrived early. In the great hall he met the counsel for the other side, Mr. Bigham, an acquaintance, and, leaning on his arm, entered the court, "capturing the enemy's counsel on the way," he said, as he sat down between us and Sir George Lewis. The counsel are now both judges.
J., in the witness-box, pointed out that he had made lithographs both on paper and on stone; that there was no difference between them, an historical fact which he was able to prove; that for the defendants to deny that a lithograph made on paper was as much a lithograph as a lithograph made on stone showed that they knew nothing about the subject, or else were acting out of malice.
Whistler was called next. He said his grievance was the accusation that he pursued the same evil practice. He was asked by Mr. Bigham if he was very angry with Mr. Sickert, and he replied he might not be angry with Mr. Sickert, but he was disgusted that "distinguished people like Mr. Pennell and myself are attacked by an absolutely unknown authority (Mr. Sickert), an insignificant and irresponsible person."
"Then," said Mr. Bigham, "Mr. Sickert is an insignificant and irresponsible person who can do no harm?"
Whistler answered: "Even a fool can do harm, and if any harm is done to Mr. Pennell it is done to me. This is a question for all artists." And he added that Mr. Sickert's "pretended compliments and flatteries were a most impertinent piece of insolence, tainted with a certain obsequious approach."
Further asked if this was his action, he said: "I am afraid if Mr. Pennell had not taken these proceedings, I should."
"You are working together then?"
"No, we are on the same side."
"Are you bearing any part of the costs?"
"No, but I am quite willing."
Sir Edward Clarke then interposed and asked if there was any foundation for that question.
"Only the lightness and delicacy of the counsel's suggestion."
